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Procedures and Opportunities pt. 1

When we walked into the waiting room, there were already a few toddlers and children in the hospital tiger “PJ’s.” It was so cute and pitiful at the same time. The hospital does a great job of creating a festive atmosphere, and the staff were all very kind.

After the nurse took Benjamin’s vitals and gathered info on him, we met with the specialists who would perform the procedure.

We spoke with the doctors who would do the bronchoscopy, then spoke with Benjamin’s TEF surgeon, and then the anesthesiologist.

This time, the staff allowed me and Jason to enter the operating room and stay with Benjamin until the anesthesia kicked in.

It is still sweet to watch Jason comforting his son, and still hard to leave your baby there by himself. Everyone is so kind and thoughtful, though.

It helped that this time we were with him, both when he went to sleep and when he woke up in the recovery room.

With daddy in recovery room

Benjamin had several procedures scheduled at the same time, so that he would only have to undergo anesthesia once.

Technically, they are only considered two procedures (a bronchoscopy and an endoscopy with dilation), but there were multiple parts to them.

He was scheduled to be in the operating room for two hours, but each doctor planned to come out and tell us the results when his part was over.

The bronchoscopy portion was finished within about 20 minutes.

For those who don’t care about technicalities, you can skip the next three paragraphs 🙂

Dr. Arteaga-Solis didn’t do everything he had planned, because Benjamin wasn’t tolerating the first device they had put in to view his airways (LMA); they had to change to a smaller scope and couldn’t take cultures of his lungs. The doctor wasn’t concerned about that, though.

They discovered he does have mild to severe tracheomalacia (no surprise) – the trachea walls are floppy from the top of the windpipe all the way down to where the lungs split.

Also there were extra secretions in the lungs, but they were clear, so it wasn’t a concern. One of the possible reasons for this is the fact that he does not clear his airways well on his own (due to the tracheomalacia).

Anyway the chest PT is helpful for him, and thankfully it’s one therapy that Benjamin actually enjoys :).